The paper I wrote for the upcoming Association of Internet Researchers Conference: Internet Convergences, How the Internet is Holding the Center of Conjured Universes, is now online.
The Internet is an indisputably influential force in changes to the way entertainment is conceived, produced, distributed, experienced and critiqued. Little is known, however, about how the Internet is used by fans and producers in the experience of cross-media entertainment. Cross-media entertainment forms such as ‘alternate reality games’, entertainment ecologies (artistic franchises and tie-ins) and enhanced television lean towards an ideal form of art that combines all forms. These works are distributed over media platforms, producers, arts types and time. They require assembly, navigation and interpretation. This paper outlines how fans and producers are using the Internet to hold these emerging works together, using examples from popular entertainment, providing a narrative- and ludic-agnostic ontology for the understanding and analysis of them, and posits motivations from cognitive psychology.
Feel free to send me any feedback or thoughts.
Sounds great. I just hope my paper isn’t scheduled at the same time so I can come hear it!
Hello Nancy! Thankyou for the compliment, I hope there isn’t a clash so I can see yours too! Regardless of whether there is a clash, but if you have time and are so inclined, I would appreciate your feedback on the arguments I put forward in my paper. And BTW, amazing list editorial positions and publications you have!
Alas us non academics dont have logins for the conference and so we cant read your paper… A notable irony, this is a Public Knowledge conference… maybe you could email the pdf. I’d love to give it a read.
I’d love to meet up with you in Brisbane – shoot me an email so we can schedule lunch or coffee or something. Thx for the compliment back atcha.
Oh sorry Siddiq, I left myself signed in and so didn’t notice you had to log in.
I have put the pdf online now. I’m making it freely available now in the interests of getting feedback and sharing ideas. I will be looking for a journal to officially publish it in as well though.[Added 29th Aug: Tis now offline as I will be looking for publication but more importantly — rewriting it!]And great Nancy. 🙂
SIddiq — I’m on the exec committee of the assn sponsoring that conference. You’re not the first to note this irony. In our defense, we made the decision to keep the archives of papers closed to the general public for several reasons, not least of which is that if an association publishes publically available conf proceedings on the web, many academic journals will treat them as already published and not consider them. Since there’s more official career rewards for journal pubs than web pubs, this matters a lot and we found that presenters at the conference were by and large less willing to submit to a totally open archive. Authors are free to do what Christy’s done and make their articles freely available at their discretion. You and anyone else can join AoIR and access all the papers submitted to the archive from this and many of our previous conferences back to 2000. AoIR welcomes the participation of non-academics who are studying social aspects of the internet. We also have a free mailing list with about 1,500 subscribers. More info @ aoir.org
On that matter of having the paper freely available, I’m putting it on the web for the non-academics out there — whose opinion I value too. I will be taking it down again though and hope that the brief time it is avail through my lil’ ol’ blog will not exempt it from consideration.
Well Christy, I am disapointed as I thought I could get to read your paper that appears to be really interesting. I gave my email address in case you could share the paper. I am writing from Canada, have just finished attending the Toronto International Film Festival 06. Thankyou for you blog page and the links. I think to be fair to people you should change your tittle as your paper is not available online, unfortunately. Have a great day, Dimitri and congrats on being an invite to a conference I think it is more valuable than an award as you are invited to share what you mind has thought up, a great compliment indeed.
Hello Dimitri, thankyou for taking the time to come and comment here and to share your honest views. You are most welcome to have a copy of my paper. I had initially sent it to people who requested it and then thought I’d put it online. The reason why I took it offline was because I want to rewrite it! The arguments will stay the same, I just wanted to make it a more fun read. As soon as I rewrite it I will submit it to a journal for publication. Once it is in a publication it will either be available to all or if not I will be making it available. I believe in that. 🙂
So, I’ll email you the paper. And anyone else who reads this post is also free to email me to request the paper. cdena AT cross-mediaentertainment.com.